Molly Reynolds Talks Regulatory Compliance with Canadian Lawyer

Senior associate Molly Reynolds has been involved with Canadian Lawyer’s latest cover story and shares her view on the growing regulatory and compliance burden facing lawyers.

The cover story looked at “four areas of regulatory compliance that remain a top concern for in-house counsel and the business units they serve.” The four areas are the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), labour and employment, privacy, and environment.

Molly shared her thoughts on the delaying of the coming into force of the private right of action, telling Canadian Lawyer it was possible they could ignore it for some time.

“It is entirely possible now that they have delayed the coming into force of the private right of action they will conveniently ignore it for a couple more years; I think that’s possible,” Molly told Canadian Lawyer.

“But I don’t think we’re going to see extensive legislative reform — I don’t see the political wins the government would get from entirely eliminating the provision for the private right of action.”

Molly also discusses the what the first three years after the implementation of CASL have been like particularly in regard to record keeping.

“Instead of just saying, ‘Well, we only used implied consent and only contact by email or electronic message our existing customers, so we don’t have to worry,’ organizations really should be keeping a database on when they received the consent and what the basis for the consent is for every person on their email list,” Molly said.